Birthday party!

I ended up picking just about the worst day in June possible for an outdoor water birthday party. The forecast that said sunny one week before turned to windy and thunderstorms! We came so close to cancelling it, but everything turned out fine. It was windy, but warm, and during the one 7 minute shower we went inside to open presents. Pretty lucky.

I was determined to keep this party on the simple side. It did grow a little bit, but still was pretty inexpensive, low-key, and I left a lot of planning to the last minute. Here's our pre-party prep table-- I couldn't put much outside beforehand because of the wind.

... which we turned into this:

We had a slip n slide on the side of the house, the bounce house, water balloon toss, sponge toss into a sprinkler ring, a kiddie pool full of water guns and dive toys and small toys frozen into ice blocks, and another kiddie pool with a slide. Plus the birthday table. I taped name placemats on a dollar store tablecloth so the kids had a place to put their drinks, goldfish, and popsicles and know whose was whose. We had a cooler of water, a cooler of three kinds of popsicles, and a cooler of water balloons by the game area. It was all free-play time and the 11 girls kept pretty busy jumping from one activity to the other. All of the play toys were things I had, borrowed, or bought cheaply. No homemade treats, just all the popsicles you could eat. We had Disney music playing, a bubble machine going, and beach balls kicking around to help create the theme. Each guest took home one squirt gun, dive toy, water ball, and a bag of swedish fish. Luckily Kissie and Kevin were able to come help with Luke and setting up and everything. I spent most of the 90 minute party opening popsicle wrappers and sticking straws in capri suns.

I made this welcome sign for our fence (a breeze using my Silhouette)

Here's the birthday crew, minus one who didn't want to leave the bounce house :)

Inside to open presents during a quick sprinkle outside

The water balloon toss (into dollar store strainers)

Luke loved throwing the water balls at Kissie, and even loved being on the receiving end too!

So despite the weather, it was a successful party. And now we've got lots of leftover popsicles for the rest of the summer too!